Gavdopoula (, ) is a Greek islet in the
Libyan Sea
The Libyan Sea (; ; ) is the portion of the Mediterranean Sea north of the North Africa, African coast of Ancient Libya, ancient ''Libya'', i.e. Cyrenaica, and Marmarica (the coast of what is now Butnan District, eastern Libya and Matrouh Gov ...
, north-west of its larger neighbour
Gavdos and to the south of
Crete
Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...
. It is part of the municipality of Gavdos in the regional unit of
Chania
Chania (, , ), also sometimes romanization of Greek, romanized as Hania, is a city in Greece and the capital of the Chania (regional unit), Chania regional unit. It lies along the north west coast of the island Crete, about west of Rethymno ...
, Crete, and was part of the former
Selino Province.
Nature
Gavdopoula is covered with
phrygana (φρύγανα) low-lying shrubs. It is an important stop for
migrating birds.
Important Bird Area
Both Gavdos and Gavdopoula have been designated by
BirdLife International
BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...
as an
Important Bird Area
An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations.
IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...
(IBA) because they support resident populations of
European shags and
Eurasian scops owls as well as
passage migrants.
Proposed container shipping development
In 1998 the islet was the proposed site of an enormous container shipping storage facility. Environmentalists campaigned successfully to block the development and Gavdopoula is now a protected nature reserve and notably for migrating birds.
See also
*
List of communities of Chania
*
List of islands of Greece
Greece has many islands, with estimates ranging from somewhere around 1,200 to 6,000, depending on the minimum size to take into account. The number of inhabited islands is variously cited as between 166 and 227.
The largest Greek island by ...
References
{{Cretan islands
Populated places in Chania (regional unit)
Gavdos
Landforms of Chania (regional unit)
Islands of Greece
Islands of Crete
Mediterranean islands
Important Bird Areas of Crete